c/w description of insects and spiders, violence, NPC death

“For as long as I’d known, resistance in Embrace had been like puddles in the cobbles. Disparate, kept separate by the foundations of the city. Over there a union of factory workers fighting for pay and safety; here a group trying to raise their voices above Parsant’s tight dogma. For us Ginnels, so much of our work had been trying to score trenches between those waters, to turn puddle, into pool, into flood.”

c/w description of police violence (in intro: 0’00 to 2’43)

“Over the next few weeks, the families paraded their victory over us. Their news-sheets celebrating the crushing of the radical ward of Atrium and the arrest of the heretic priest Lena Fisher.

The press’ insults were the easiest taunt to brush off, their actions were harder to stomach. ”

c/w police violence and named NPC death (1:21:30 to 1:25:46. If you skip the description but want the facts, check below episode notes), natural disaster (earthquake)

“Those moments were just a glimpse though. They’d soon be brought to an end. Disaster brings out the best in communities, and the worst in authority.” I can’t remember if it was Serrivomer or Boctive that said that, but either way, those words would prove prophetic.”

“In sessions over in Marrow, in the ransacked halls of the Arrad Chambers, they advocated for great sums of money to go to the Bridgers to repair their tarnished heirloom.  We’d not get a penny of it. We were left to fend for ourselves. ”

“The earthquake that rocked through the city would only be a footnote. A disaster that many would tie to other events of that day. Because, at the same time as our protest, the rest of the Jubilant were over the other end of the city. And they were about to do something really fucking stupid.”

“Heat in Embrace wraps close to the skin – saturating, condensation mingling with sweat. There’s a texture to it that I’ve not felt anywhere else. When the sun breaks, it doesn’t tip-toe through dawn. It’s there in its full fury, from moment of first light til its dusk retreat.

That summer the city blistered. The scrimshawers were kept busy repairing cracks in bone; the Trill’s moisture was the only thing that stopped the fleshwood from igniting. Our tempers though were frayed to wicks, ready to catch. Hulling day would be the spark.”

“As much as Maybes had leaders, Ezra was the Jubilant’s. When we took Oken, others in the Ginnels had a dozen ideas for different ways we could use him – whether that be as a bargaining chip with the council or turning him into the weapon the Jackal’s said he was. It took all my sway to keep him with the Jubilant. I reasoned that if Ezra could help a fool like me, then just maybe they could do the same with Oken.”

“Then, there were the Jubilant. They weren’t professional or ruthless; they weren’t calculating or swift-tongued – but, they had their ways. They were resourceful, broad-hearted and brave. Uncertain in a way that kept them open to other means of doing things.

Others liked to dismiss them. All they saw was the messes they created but they never watched for long enough to see that, no matter how dire the situation, they always found a way back out.”

“Us that used to play in the alleys and backstreets of Calvary had a game. A bunch of us would cluster together, locked arm-to-arm, roaring and vicious, pretending to be a remnant. Whoever was left got to be one of the Tenders, would try and take that giggling mass of bodies down. They’d pretend to be Carn nim Daker or Arbor’s Precident or another of their legends.

Everyone had their favourite, though there was one we always fought over. Oken nim Shalif, the slayer of Relict and the Ochre Hull. And on those streets where we played, we could see the tower where he was said to keep watch, asleep until Embrace needed him.”